


We Do Not Choose our Deaths

by slamncram (GettheSalt)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sibling Incest, Thorki - Freeform, Valhalla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/slamncram
Summary: Of all the mistakes Loki has made, he knows that this one is the most grievous, but there is nothing he can do to right it, now.





	We Do Not Choose our Deaths

Of all the mistakes he’s made, he knows that this one is the most grievous, but there is nothing he can do to right it, now.

He can try, certainly, but he has, and look where that’s gotten him. In the grasp of the Mad Titan, with the breath leaving his body, the fight going out of him, even while he spits his last insult at that smirking face. A face he’d hoped he’d never have to see again.

He can’t save Thor. He’s tried, but it’s down to Thor, alone, now. There are no more Asgardians, no Hulk, no Heimdall. There was only Loki, and from the moment that ship’s shadow overtook them, he knew that this was a possibility. That his end wasn’t so far away, after all, even after everything they had just been through.

If he can die to give Thor a chance, he will.

So, he does.

Loki has thought about death. Quite a lot, really, and some may say that was because he spent so much time pretending he was gripped by it. Falling through that wormhole and becoming enslaved to Thanos had been the first. Pretending to fall on Svartalfheim had been the second, and the longest lasting. The one that had left him hiding in a skin that wasn’t his own, with no one he could talk to, or confide in, when he took to thinking about the things he’d done, the choices he’d made, and the deaths he had imposed on more than just himself.

He’d spent many long nights out of his glamour, alone, behind closed and locked doors, where no one could disturb him. He had thought quite a lot about death, and what it meant for someone like him, and how he wasn’t sure he was ready for something like that.

But destiny didn’t wait for you to be ready, and Loki had known that, even if he hadn’t wanted to accept it, up until the moment he’d felt the dagger in his hand, and known this could be his last act.

One of the things he’d wondered was what would happen to him after death. He was no true Asgardian, he hadn’t really earned his place in the halls of Valhalla.

That was, until Thor had come back, their world had been destroyed, and he’d been set back, firmly, at his brother’s side. Loki had idly wondered, out loud, laying next to Thor in the quiet, nights before, if he had changed his fate enough. Tipped the scales in his favour, so that if and when death came for him, as it had come for their father, he might join them in Valhalla.

Thor’s hand had been warm on his side as he’d turned toward him, and murmured that he thought Loki was well on the way to at least being made to sit outside the hall while everyone else celebrated. They’d laughed, and rolled, and made love, and as he’d fallen asleep, Loki had wondered if Thor was right. If he truly believed that.

He wished he could tell him that he had been.

The pain in his chest, the tightness around his neck, had given way to something else. Something bright and warm, and not unlike the late afternoon sun in Asgard that he and Thor had laid under countless times before the failed coronation.

_The sun will shine on us again_.

Even without opening his eyes, though, Loki knows there isn’t an _us_. It’s him, alone. Thor was left behind, on that ship, dead in space, no one but corpses of all those he’d tried so hard to save to be there with him as...

What?

Loki doesn’t know, and it’s that uncertainty that forces his eyes open, and has him sitting up.

He isn’t dressed in the clothes he’d died in. That’s a small blessing. The fabric he’s dressed in is soft, light, a length of green the same shade as the cape he’d died in wrapped around his shoulders and falling well past his hips, an end of it trailing on the ground by his boots, until he stands and it brushes the backs of his legs. It’s like the attire he used to wear to feasts, and that isn’t a surprise. Not knowing where he is.

The room is golden, like Asgard, and he supposes that shouldn’t be a surprise either. The bed he’d been laid on was soft, but, beyond this room, this alcove, he can hear voices. He can hear music, and it sounds like Asgard in happier times. Before his mistakes had begun.

He is dead.

He is in Valhalla.

“It took you a while, but you figured it out.”

The voice, when he hears it, sounds like it’s rising from a dream. That was the voice that shushed their nightmares, encouraged his determination, countered the arguments he put up to protect himself from facing who he was, and who he could be.

It’s a voice Loki hasn’t heard in far too long, and when he turns and sees her there, he’s surprised to feel the way his chest aches.

Her golden hair is styled the same way she used to wear it, and the gown she’s wearing is just as resplendent as any of the ones she’d worn on Asgard. She’s smiling, and Loki can see the tears in her eyes as she opens her arms.

Frigga. His mother.

Loki doesn’t need to think about it. He doesn’t need to speak, or question it. He simply lets his body, whole and unhurt, do what it wants, and moves towards her, nearly falling into that embrace, so much the child he’d once been, with his fingers curling in her gown, and his face in her shoulder.

“I did it.”

“Yes, you did.” She soothes, but her voice is too calm, too _proud_ for her to truly understand what he’d meant.

“Mother, no. After everything Thor did, everything I helped him do, I did it. I brought damnation on our people, and--”

“--And you died the God that Thor believed you could be. That I knew you were.” Her voice still holds that calm note, but there’s an edge there, the one she’d used when she didn’t want them arguing with her. She pulls back, and Loki reluctantly lets her go, refusing to meet her eyes, only to have those cool hands cup his face, and turn his gaze to her. “You did the right thing, Loki. By the Norns, it took you... _quite_ a long time, but you did it. You and Thor found your way back to each other, and you did what you could to protect that, and protect what remained of our people.”

Loki feels the weight of what comes after.

“I made mistakes that led to what could be...” He takes a breath. “The end of half the universe.”

Frigga smile is gentle as she takes him by the arm, leading him down a hall. Loki doesn’t resist, but, how could he? This is Valhalla. She is his mother. There is no fight here.

“Do you think your father never made mistakes? That I didn’t? That Thor hasn’t, and may not yet? You did what you could to try to right it, Loki.” When she looks at him now, despite the golden, calm, safe air of this place, Loki can feel the concern rolling off her. The anxiety, and the worry for what comes next.

“What now?”

“Now, we watch over your brother, and pray he doesn’t join us too soon.” Frigga smiles. Implicit in her words in a reality that Loki knows even Thor cannot outrun forever. “The sun _will_ shine on you both again, my son, you were not wrong about that.”


End file.
